reviews, commentaries, stories: paul tamburello's take

August 29, 2011

Reggie Smith, Tenor sax, New Orleans Music With An Alabama AccentCorner of Royal and Saint Peter StreetFrench Quarter, New OrleansFriday, August 26, 2011

Hang on, there’s something familiar about the wail of that saxophone. Sure enough, in front of Rouse’s at the corner of Royal and St. Peter Street, there's the sax player who fronted the street band I got inspired to write about during Satchmo Summerfest.

Actually, fronted is too tepid a word. This guy pranced, danced, sang, chanted, bantered with the passersby, and played up a storm of funk, rock, gospel, and pop with a distinctly New Orleans accent.

Today, in an electric blue shirt, plaid shorts, and his dreads sticking out from his white band hat with the Cool Bone Jazz insignia, he is more subdued in manner but certainly not in the energy he's putting in his music. I’ve dropped some folding money in his sax case so when he takes a breather, I feel like it’s ok to ask him a few questions. And I continue my learning curve about the life of street musicians.

Reggie Smith, in his late 20s, came here from Alabama two months ago and hasn't left yet. It started in a typical New Orleans fashion.

“I asked if I could sit in with one of the street groups, they said yes, and I got my start. The way it works is that they ask you to wait till they start the next set, divide the tips before I begin the next set with them, then divide the tips again after I've played with them.”

Playing on the street is usually an ad hoc adventure. Few of these gigs are regularly scheduled events and very few of the musicians lead regularly scheduled lives.

“This is how I network here. Sometimes another musician asks for my name and calls me when he has a gig I can work on. If I get a gig and I need a musician, I call one of the guys I know. You've got to love working out in the street or it would be real hard. Some guys look down on playing in the street but not me. I love being out here and starting a party.” Sweat is dripping from the short beard on his chin. It's about 90° in the shade.

He begins to play again. The guy could start a party in a morgue. Reggie is playing just about anything that comes into his mind. I hear him rumble out the theme from the old Peter Gunn TV show, then a few shreds of Richie Valens' "La Bamba", and a slow dirge of "St. James infirmary". Folding money is piling up in his sax case but I doubt it's enough to pay for a serious buy at a supermarket.

Then Reggie gets going on “Just My Imagination,” the Smokey Robinson song with all sorts of trills and flourishes. He could just as easily be on his back porch trying all this stuff out, it's almost like an open rehearsal, with a live audience who happen to be the regulars and the tourists traveling through this busy intersection. Somewhere in his own mind, Reggie’s on a stage.

All these flourishes and imaginings are a form of practice. He took Robinson’s “Just My Imagination” and turned it upside down and inside out and boy was it fun listening to it. You can take it to the bank that some of those wild improvisations will get honed down and played next time he is on stage or on a street corner.

I chat him up again during his next breather. He grins when say that I wrote a story about his “Let’s have a party” attitude when he played with his bunch of street musicians on August 4.

“In Alabama, I grew up in a gospel tradition. I learned jazz in school. When I hear New Orleans music I hear lots of those elements in it. If you want to learn New Orleans music, you buy a Louis Armstrong CD and learn how to play those songs. I know lots of guys who have memorized those songs and can play them just like Louis,” he says.

“When you're playing on the street, you know how well you're doing by the tips that are rolling in. I like to get people involved, get out there and throw a little street party. If we get into a riff that gets the crowd going, we remember what that was. Next time we get together, I might say let's do that Wednesday riff and they'll all remember and play it and we get the crowd going again. If we get into a groove and people aren't moving and involved, we start playing something else.”

His time as his own, he'll quit when he feels like it or if he has another gig or if he feels like setting up someplace else - people or no people, tips or no tips. Guys like this can no more stop playing than they can stop breathing. He's performing in his own world, bobbing and weaving, playing whatever comes to mind, now is playing the theme to a TV show I can't identify, every so often blowing through the reed to make sounds that would scare a raccoon or perhaps romance it. I’m about ten yards away, scribbling notes on my pad that’s perched on lid of a trash bin and feel like I’m in a concert hall.

Wander around the French Quarter and you can fill your day listening to mini-concerts from street corners to Jackson Square - blues, jazz, gospel, brass bands - no cover, no minimum, but be sure you have folding money in your pocket and liberally drop it into the tip jars.

There's a lot of energy in French Quarter street music. And it’s not just for the tourists. This is birthright music, music that honors the legacy of Louis Armstrong, the kid who used to sell coal from a cart near this neighborhood, who learned how to play the cornet at a reform school, and later reformed the entire genre of jazz. If you listen hard enough, you’ll hear riffs that resemble the music played in the brothels and saloons on Basin Street and the neighborhoods around the port of New Orleans.

You’ll also hear how New Orleans is not too proud to add to its legacy. Musicians hear a lick a guy like Reggie Smith brings from his upbringing in Alabama and bam, it gets absorbed with a New Orleans accent, and is echoed on other corners throughout the French Quarter.

“I'll give you my cell number in case you want to ask any more questions,” Reggie says.

This is the way it is down here - open, friendly, engaging, a real southern thing. If I feel like throwing a block party the next time I come to New Orleans, Reggie’d be the first guy I’d call.

Trying to capture the energy of a Second Line parade it's is like trying to hold water in your hands. Try explaining the sensation of a sneeze, or an orgasm, or a fabulous surprise, and you’ll get the idea. None of it would happen without the band, in this case the Young Fellas Brass Band and the social aid and pleasure clubs that support it and the people who come to join it from all over the city, or stand on their porches to watch it, or set up their chairs on the sidewalk, or on the neutral ground (that’s the narrow strip of land in the middle of a wide New Orleans street – when I first read about a neutral ground, I thought it meant some kind of social truce zone!), or follow along for a block or two. When you think of the parade up North, you think of an event that you watch in a stationary position, cheer when it goes by, then go home.

Well, that is not the model down here. There is no way you can be in the vicinity of a second line parade and not get involved in it some way, for example, if you walk along, before you know it, you’re walking in time with the thump thump bump and blare of the band. And you're talking to people you've never seen before and may never see again. Actually talking might not be the right word. Joking, joshing, adding your own comments to the joking and high times going on around you is more like it. Everybody around you is yelling, cheering, poking good-natured fun at someone, or getting good natured fun poked at them, and returning it with interest.

August 26, 2011

Jackson SquareNew Orleans, LouisianaFriday, August 26, 2011The four sides of Jackson Square in New Orleans are filled with locals and tourists, commerce and culture. People come down here to stroll, to chill, to visit the two museums in the Cabildo (part of Louisiana State Museum), to step into the stately St. Louis Cathedral,the oldest cathedral in North America), to walk through the lush green Jackson Square park.

A never ending procession of friends, families, and lovers swirls with seamless ease around entertainers and artists who make a living here. The square is surrounded on its perimeter by all manner of shops geared to the tourist trade. The park and the area in front of St. Louis Cathedral are great places to sit and relax. If you stay still long enough, you can feel the pulse of the city.

The video: A three minute promenade from one side of Jackson Square to the other in front of St. Louis Cathedral on a typical Friday afternoon - street performers, artists, palm readers, tarot card readers, musicians, and Lo and Behold, inimitable trumpeter Kenny Terry fronting the Young Fellas Brass Band. This guy can get a party going anywhere with his riffs on his well traveled trumpet and his rough and ready singing voice.

Last time I saw this man he was fronting a band on the same corner. He filled the street with so much energy I was inspired to break out my note pad and write a story on the spot.

Today, here he is playing solo on the same corner. I chat with him between songs. Reggie Smith's story to follow but I cant resist sending you this little video to give you a taste of Smith-style street music in the French Quarter.

August 24, 2011

The humbly named 6th Annual Rising Tide Conference On The Future Of New Orleans is scheduled for Saturday, August 27, at Xavier University. pt at large had such a grand time at last year’s event, he’s heading for New Orleans...again.

The Rising Tide Conference is an annual gathering for all who wish to learn more and do more to assist New Orleans' recovery. It's for everyone who loves New Orleans and is working to bring a better future to all its residents.

Leveraging the power of bloggers and new media, the conference is a launch pad for organization and action. Our day-long program of speakers and presentations is tailored to inform, entertain, enrage and inspire.

We come together to dispel myths, promote facts, highlight progress and regress, discuss recovery ideas, and promote sound policies at all levels. We aim to be a "real life" demonstration of internet activism as we continue to recover from a massive failure of government on all levels.

Rising Tide started in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding of the city when a small group of New Orleans-based bloggers decided to expand their on-line advocacy for the rebirth of New Orleans into a public event.

Last year’s program, reported here on pt at large, was as advertised – inspiring, provocative, informative.

Let's see if Rising Tide 6 can keep the good times rolling in the same direction, the controversial times scrutinized for positive response, and the needs improvement times explored for solutions.

August 22, 2011

As they say in cards, you have to know when to hold’em and when to fold’em. If I were to base my hand on the floor that felt like tarpaper and on the men’s room that was of the caliber of a dive, I would have folded my cards and left Fiorella’s before you could say Big Easy.

My friend Bill Ives, a New Orleans native, has raved about the fried chicken at Fiorella's Café. Bill is a guy who takes food seriously. I’m hopeful there’s no connection between the floor that’s stickier than the one at the Maple Leaf Bar and what's going to come out of the kitchen.

The small place has it’s own charm. Lots of kitschy artwork and a faded photo of the Fiorella matriarch adorn the walls, one of which takes a halfhearted stab at the distressed look. The place is definitely not trying too hard. Ten tables, an assortment of deuces and fours, and a four-stool service bar, it’s spare and pleasantly funky.

It’s the kind of unpretentious place that wraps itself around you like so many others in this city - the only attitude in here is friendly and laid-back. The door to the street is wide open so the 90° late afternoon heat mixes with the overpowered air conditioning and aromas of fried chicken float around under the two ceiling fans. The chicken smells divine.

After about ten minutes, what appears on my plate is what Bill promised. The golden, crusty-crispy batter is so thick it captures the intense heat of the chicken legs and breast that had just been pulled from the fryer. The first bite into a leg burns the roof of my mouth.

A prudent diner would wait for it to cool. I keep eating. The texture of the batter feels thick in my hands – is there any other way to eat fried chicken? I saved the breast, a hefty piece loaded with white meat, for last. By the time I'm done, I'm behaving like some lobster lovers of my acquaintance, picking up every piece of leftover, gnawing off the batter the way they look for little shreds of lobster meat in parts strewn about their plate.

So this is what real Southern fried chicken tastes like. Served with red beans and rice, it's about as Southern a meal you can get. I notice I am sucking the morsels of batter off my fingers before I wipe them with my napkin.

August 13, 2011

Seva Venet and Mike Beauchamp, a banjo, a saxophone, and two storiesThe Candlelight Lounge925 North RobertsonNew Orleans, LAAugust 3, 2011

You never know who the full cast of characters is going to be when the Tremé Brass Band gets going at the Candlelight Lounge. You know that co-founders Benny Jones, Sr., rock steady presence on the snare drums, and legendary bass drum player Lionel Batiste, will anchor the back row, and that irrepressible trumpeter Kenny Terry, trombone player Ed King, and a few other regulars are going to show up. What you don’t know are the wild cards, the guys who founders Benny or Lionel Batiste have invited to sit in.

Sometimes the regulars don’t even know the names of the men who share the bandstand with them. Which is exactly what I learned at the first break when I asked Ed King to name the men who were playing tonight. Ed named the regulars then grabbed the banjo player to help him name the others.

This never fails to amaze me. And it happens all he time down here, in pickup groups of street bands and regular gigs like the Candlelight. Musicians show up, they play, they get paid (not much), and they go home or to another gig. They get to know each other by how they play together.

Banjo player Seva Venet, who shows up to play every two weeks or so, names a few others. Ben Julius McKee, “Call me Jap, and don’t confuse me with a Jewish American Princess!” tuba player Ben Julius jokes as he listens to Seva.

Like other musicians, Seva has another job to keep the cash flowing. “I’m the resident musician at Wilson Elementary School. I use creole music to teach history in a program called KidSmart. My trio is playing at the Jazz National Park on North Peters Street on August 27, come down if you can.”

I am in for a bigger surprise when I start talking with the baritone sax player, a middle aged, casually dressed man with a salt and pepper beard and a cap with a New Orleans Saints logo perched on his head. I ask him for his name and get a great story.

“I was working at my flower stall at Aududon Park one day and the Tremé Brass Band set up right in front of my stall. A crew was filming them and while they did, they started talking to me. When I mentioned I was a musician, too, Lionel Batiste invited me to sit in here every other week.” This is such a typical New Orleans six degrees of separation story.

Mike Beauchamp performs as a pharmacist in his day job at Tulane University. “After hours, I’m an urban farmer, I work with a group called Perennial Plate,” Mike says, “I like to stick close to nature.” Growing flowers at Audubon Park does the trick.

“But I’ll tell you, coming here every other week is like therapy for me. There’s so much energy here.”

Check these videos out for a good look at Mike Beauchamp, pharmacist, urban farmer, musician, and flower child in a gray beard. When he gets going on his baritone sax, Mike puts every bit of love into his solos as he puts into his flowers at the park.

I can’t wait to return to the Candlelight. The stories the musicians tell are about as good as the music they play.

August 11, 2011

Crowds sashay down Frenchman Street Friday night August 4, 2011, propelled for several blocks by a big time brass band. The grounds of the US Mint will be jamming with live music, inspired by Louis Armstrong, from noon till 8 PM Saturday and Sunday.

August 4, 2011 at the "Red Beans and Ricely Yours" Stage on the grounds of the U. S. Mint, 400 Esplanade Ave., New Orleans, LA 70116

The sis-boom-bah of the Treme Brass Band gets hold of your feet, limbs and spinal cord and spontaneous locomotion erupts. Kenneth Terry blows smoke from his trumpet and the band and guests, pile it on in this version of the theme song from the HBO series "Treme." The audience needs no prompting, as you can see.

James Fulton, wife Greta at his side, tries to ignite a competition between The Hot 8 Brass Band on the balcony of The Blue Nile and the brass band lumbering down Frenchman Street. Brilliant cacophony ensues.http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2011/08/satchmo-summerfest-satchmo-strut-frenchmen-street-vibe.html

Getting into a conversation with a perfect stranger in New Orleans is as easy as finding a place to order a fried shrimp po’ boy.

“Who are those guys?” I ask a man across the street from the Blue Nile on Frenchmen Street. A brass band is wailing on the music emporium’s second floor balcony. The Friday night Satchmo Strut is in full gear, a regular feature of the annual Satchmo Summerfest.

“The Hot 8 Brass Band is playing inside on the first floor but I don’t know who those guys on the balcony are,” he says.

“They’re The Young Fellas Brass Band,” I report to him after a quick walk across the street.

“What makes this city special?” I ask.

Next thing you know, I’m in a thirty minute conversation with James Fulton, who’s set up camp chairs on the sidewalk for him and his wife Greta to watch the thousands of revelers eating, drinking, and making merry on Frenchmen Street.

“Down here people don’t care about the size of your wallet or clothes you wear or cars you drive, they want to know who you are. Maybe it’s a southern thing.”

So for the next thirty minutes we do just that, covering family, parenting, our professions, things that go right in life, and things that don’t. From time to time, we stop to absorb the energy of a brass band blaring its way down the narrow street, watch people jubilantly join in second line parades behind the bands, and chat with passersby.

James and Greta grew up in the projects in New Orleans, mean places that many did not emerge from unscathed. James made his way up from laborer to construction manager. “We’re not rich but we’re comfortable,” he says.

Married, their kids live on the east bank and the west bank. They live in Madisonville, across Lake Ponchartrain. “We come to Frenchmen Street twice a month, there’s such a good vibe here. My wife loves reggae so we go to the Café Negril a lot.”

James loves playing with his ten year old grandson, spending time with him that he wishes he also spent with his own sons when they were growing up, a familiar refrain from men who’ve had to work hard for every advantage they could get.

“We spend four days here during Mardi Gras, stay with our kids or with friends and don’t go home till Fat Tuesday is done.”

I turn around and see a young couple sitting in the Fulton’s camp chairs.

“You know them?” I ask.

“No,” he grins. Greta says hello to the couple and lets them sit there while two white women they met there earlier (total strangers) come back to take her someplace up the street they thought was cool.

“That happens sometimes. People see the empty camp chairs, have a seat, maybe even drink a beer from your cooler but no harm. When you come back you just say hello and tell them they’re in your chairs. They say thank you and get up."

This is such a perfect anecdote to characterize the vibe down here. “We set our chairs down and sometimes don’t come back for a couple of hours. The chairs are always where we left them.”

James is getting warmed up on the subject. “At Jazz Fest, we pencil in who we want to see, then we go to Walgreens, buy eight $4 chairs and get to the gate at 10AM when Jazz Fest opens. We put them in the front row of the stages we want, then go from stage to stage all day long. If someone is in our chairs, we tell them it’s ours and they smile and get up.”

“You ever been to a second line?”James asks as The Young Fellas Brass Band swaggers past us, followed by a shim-shamming, hip-shaking band of second liners.

"During every second line, there are people out there watching the musicians, young kids who want to play, they watch your moves what you wear, how you hit your notes, how you keep time with the music. These kids who can play want to take your job. One of them or their friends might get into the ear of a band member about your lapses to try to get your job.”

“The same thing happens with the social aid and pleasure clubs,” he says. They try to outdo each other, watch what they wear, how they style their dance, then try to best you.”

“One of the ways musicians make money is to play for Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs, those are the places where the band stops during a second line parade,” he says, and adds wistfully, “We don’t support our musicians well enough.”

“This street is where the locals come to hang out,” James says. Then he rolls off the names of the Rock N Bowl, Vaughn’s, and a few other places he thinks I’d like to hear music.

We start to head off in different directions. “There are still some very rough parts of the city. We grew up in two of them,” he says. And he tells me which streets, “safe streets” he calls them, to use on my walk back to the French Quarter.

To me, this feels like another day in The Big Easy, special and ordinary all in the same breath.

August 08, 2011

My two trusty editors, Rebecca Wilson and Susaan Straus (yes, the two a’s in Susaan are not a typo), keep my writing on the rails. They’re celebrating birthdays this month and this is a chance for me to wrap a thank you note in a bow and send it to them electronically.

For me writing is a creative endeavor, a discipline, and usually fun. The drafts I send my editors are met with objectivity and occasional humor.

The admonitions of “What’s the focus here?” or “Your tenses aren’t consistent,” or “You need a verb in there somewhere!” or “Way too long and convoluted,” help me become a better writer. I still manage to include typos and assorted gaffes when I publish without “vetting” the work with one or the other of the editors.

And they know when to throw a bouquet."Love the ending!,” or, “I especially loved those two turns of phrase!” happen frequently.

Rebecca Wilson is an interior designer who specializes in redecorating and space planning. Susaan Straus is a savvy business consultant who specializes in executive coaching, organizational development, and interactive large group programs. They probably won't offer to edit your work but if you need the services they provide, I can just about guarantee you'll be pleased with their input.

Thank you Rebecca and Susaan for taking the time to help shape my stories. And Happy Birthdays!!

August 07, 2011

People who run the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans are no slackers. In the fire pit known as the month of August, they come up with a fundraiser to lure New Orleanians out and onto the streets to celebrate a three-hour, six-block long party along the artsiest strip of real estate in town – Julia Street.

All the organizers had to do was get the words White Linen in the title of the event and they got the attention of the locals. Before we trumped Mother Nature with the invention of air conditioning, white linen was the defense of choice to ward off the rays of the sun for people who could afford it. The white suits and dresses did not absorb the sun’s heat. They not only looked pretty cool, but were pretty effective reflectors of the intense sun.

People down here value tradition and history. They’re altogether willing to dress up in white to relive the genteel feel of the olden times. And practically nowhere on earth do people have promenading down to a social science more than they do in New Orleans.

A person could go snow blind from all the yardage of white linen, cotton, and silk attire. Aside from Aspen, I’ve never seen as much white in one place in my life.

Julia Street is sealed off, concession stands selling food and beverages and tables and chairs (white, of course) line a long strip from the 300 block to the 700 block. Thousands of partiers purchase strips of tickets to exchange for food and drink. Paper fans are being given away in galleries. Thousands of women and men (yes) idly fan themselves with one hand while cradling an icy beverage in the other.

Note to self: next year, ask if the lemonade is alcohol enhanced. My powers of observation briefly waned after I chugged a glass of Ginger Mint Lemonade. The bartender didn’t mention the Absolut part.

No one mentions the eighty-degree heat and sweltering humidity. To them, it would be sort of like saying hey it’s pretty dark tonight isn’t it? Perspiration glistens on faces of all colors and distractingly on womens' décolletage.

The laughter that punctuates the air neutralizes the fact that my white shirt and white trousers are sticking to my skin. A different band plays from a makeshift stage every few blocks. Every art gallery on the street is open. Strollers file in and out of dozens of trendy art galleries.

As far as I can tell, the fact that there’s some sensational art on the walls isn’t the main draw. Promenaders file in because it’s like a carnival midway and no one wants to miss anything. Plus the galleries are filled with walking, talking installations called human beings that are easily as interesting to gawk at as the art on the walls.

The food vendors are doing a brisk business but the lines for the beverage vendors suggests they’re giving drinks away for free – they’re not. Nothing like an infusion of a cool alcoholic beverage to help you forget about your upcoming dry cleaning bill.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

MORE PHOTOS

Most of the gallery hoppers didn't appear as dilgent as this young lady. The people watching was as good a show as the art on display.

Two performance artists handed out tongue in cheek placards in front of one of the galleries. The adventurous toted them around all night long.

August 06, 2011

In New Orleans for the 11th Annual Satchmo Summerfest, I can’t resist a quick visit to the KIPP McDonogh15 Charter School for the Arts, about which I wrote a series of stories last August. http://ptatlarge.typepad.com/ptatlarge/2010/09/new-orleans-charter-schools-and-recovery-part-4.html

The school is part of a massive Recovery School District program begun by the Louisiana State Legislature in 2003 to take over failing schools. The public school system was so riddled with ineptitude and corruption, the Legislature voted to fire all 7500 teachers and employees in the Orleans School District shortly after Katrina.

The Orleans Parish schools are now part of the Recovery School District. The new schools are now publicly funded schools run by for-profit or nonprofit groups that operate by a "charter," or contract. "KIPP is a national network of free, open-enrollment, college-preparatory public schools dedicated to preparing students in underserved communities for success for college and for life."

There’s nothing like the hum of a school in the week before school officially begins. The emotional range between tension, anticipation, and excitement is palpable. Hope is in the air. Hope for a successful year, hope for creating an environment in which learning flourishes, character is formed, and ideals forged.

Less obvious but present is a layer of apprehension as parents, teachers, students and administrators wonder: how will the year go?

I’m looking for April Griffith, Business Operations Manager of the K - 5 school, who gave me an informal tour last August. Cartons of supplies are piled high on spotless linoleum floors. Small groups of teachers are huddled around desks in classrooms discussing curriculum, strategy, supplies, first week activities.

Parent volunteers sell Tshirts and answer questions at a table in the hallway.

"Is this your daughter? She's so pretty. How did you get her hair to look like that," says the grandmotherly woman to the young mother who's been nervously waiting for her daughter to finish being assessed by reading teacher.

"She's lost a little during the summer but she'll be fine," says the teacher as she walks out of the classroom with the girl.

Young teachers stand back and fuss with the arrangement of cutout letters proclaiming themes and school goals creating a space that says welcome, you belong here, we want you here. Messages of school themes pop up on every wall and stairway, a visual reminder of what the school is all about. Whether they become wallpaper or themes to live by will become clear as the weeks go by.

The sound of “I Feel Like Funkin’ It Up” ring out from the classroom at the end of the hall. “That’s pretty good motivational music,” I say to the young man working on the bulletin board outside the door. Probably every New Orleanian has heard that song.

“I use music to help me teach,” he says. “I made a cleaned up version of that song and I call it “We’re Gonna Clean It Up.“

“I’ve lived in New Orleans for a month and half. I love it here.” No cut out letters for him. A pack of fresh magic markers on the ladder behind him, he’s busy drawing a huge picture that’s going to be his personal proclamation to his very first class of kindergarteners.

For some reason, I feel like weighing in. “I taught ten year olds for 34 years. Know your stuff, follow whatever rules you set up, and love your kids,” I say.

I could have recited a way longer list but this would do as a cheer from the sidelines. If he’s lucky, and has good mentors, and a strong sense of self and purpose, he’ll make it.

New Orleans schools were crumbling and the system was an abysmal failure before Katrina. It remains to be seen if Charter Schools staffed by young, relatively inexperienced teachers, can make a dent in illiteracy and inequity of education.

The clock is ticking. In one week, these fledgling teachers will put their minds and hearts to the test. It’s not a stretch to say that New Orleans’s future is on the line.

The Satchmo StrutFriday, August 5, 20116 PM to 2AMAll along Frenchmen Street in the Faubourg Marigny Neighborhood

The Dancing Man leads The Free Agents Brass Band down Frenchmen Street and the Sweet Street Symphony leads a concert further up the street.

Ed King of the Treme Brass Band wails on his trombone - in Michael's Bike Shop! He'd gone inside to find a new seat for his bike after playing for the Strut with the band. They recognized him and begged him to play - he did, and sang a few verses to boot.

The crowd wanders down the street; pt with Treme Brass Band founder and leader, Benny Jones, Sr. "We're playing at 3 PM tomorrow," he reminded me, "Don't miss it!"

We can hear the jubilant Glen David Andrews from inside the Three Muses - and feel the Free Agents Brass Band as they serenade at a stop along the street.

The Young Fellas Brass Band funks it up from the balcony of The Blue Nile - pt with dancers from Florida he met at The Rock n Bowl Mid-City Lanes the night before.

James and Greta Fulton - James regaled me with stories, gave me pointers about the city and listed his favorite spots for listening to music in New Orleans. He and Greta are reasons this city is special - friendly, engaging people who want to share the story of the city with strangers who, in an hour, feel like they've met a new friend.

August 05, 2011

Corner of Royal and St. Peter StreetFrench Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana3 PMAugust 4, 2011

Other parts of the country might have pollen or smog in the air. In New Orleans, especially in the French Quarter, it's music.

You can hardly go anywhere in the French Quarter without music breaking out somewhere. Might drift down from a window behind a Spanish style wrought iron balcony or a passing vehicle.

Then there are the street musicians. (Video link) You can damn well hear them three blocks away, god love 'em, and you start to walk toward the sounds like a moth to the flame, except with way better results that burn you up with lighthearted joy and insouciance.

You’ll stay anchored across the street from them and start moving your feet and shaking whatever body parts begin to move of their own accord until you render yourself entirely late for wherever you were planning to go. What the hell, you’re in New Orleans... may as well get on New Orleans time.

These guys would be an ordinary looking bunch of men if you happened to see them on a streetcar or sitting in a diner. Put tubas, percussion, trumpets and a saxophone in their hands and they become street artists who can turn your day around.

They set up on a street corner with nary a soul in sight and before long they create an audience. The musicians might be young, old, black, white, scruffy or dressed outlandishly or to the nines. The Ghostriders, if the CD on the street next to the tip jar is an indication of their identity, are all but the last.

These men might not have two nickels to rub together, but you’d never know it by their music. Playing music is like breathing to them, no choice in the matter, they do it to survive and to feel alive and free and untethered from cares that would probably sink the rest of us.

The sax player sings, hollers, and does a second line ballet routine improvised on the spot. He serenades unsuspecting tourists who walk down Royal or St. Peter Street. Watching a couple from Denmark or Ohio try to fathom what’s going on and how they react is a great part of the show.

So we put folding money in their tip jars. It’s not enough to pay for what they give us, a buoyancy that lifts us away from our own cares and makes us feel happy. Really really happy.

August 04, 2011

I'm in New Orleans for the 11th Annual Satchmo Summerfest that begins this weekend. The reason I arrive in New Orleans on Wednesday?...To head for The Candlelight Lounge, and a quintessential music experience you'll get here and only here. People from all walks of life and every social, economic, and cultural strata pack this unpretentious neighborhood bar every Wednesday night - The Treme Brass Band is the reason why.

Yes, that is a short man standing on a chair to dance with a six foot four coed...and yes, those people in the Candlelight Lounge are having as much fun as it looks like they are...and yes, the band's regulars are joined every week by musicians from all over town... and no, I haven't written the story yet.

This party happens every Wednesday night. Benny Jones, Sr.'s band is as predictable as the New Oreans weather - seriously hot but that's the way people down here like their music. By 10 PM the place is packed and Benny's band is locked and loaded. Lead trumpet Kenneth Terry is a soaring, bleating, teasing, high riding force of nature. He sings songs everyone in the joint knows, when he points to them for the chorus, they shout it right back.

I'll finish the story when I get home. In the meantime, this bunch of photos tells the story. I'm telling you, if you only had one night in New Orleans, and it was Wednesday, this is the place to go.

A funny thing happened as I was on the way to dinner at the French Market. I passed by The Orleans Grapevine in the French Quarter on Orleans Avenue, peeked inside, and saw what I wanted. Someplace small, cozy, local, and cool. I’d find my friend Bill Ives’ suggestions - Coops or Fiorello’s another night.

The well-stocked horseshoe shaped bar looked inviting. Indirect light glowed dimly on the cool polished caramel-colored granite bar, surrounded by a dozen comfy stools. Four couples and three coeds were enjoying dinner and bottles of wine. The three coeds next to me supplied 80% of the decibels at the bar, while the four couples across from me enjoyed more intimate conversations. Everyone seemed local.

I was headed for the Candlelight Lounge to hear the Treme Brass Band later and needed a fuel stop. The Orleans Grapevine had a great list of appetizers, featuring scallops, crab cakes, and gumbo, plus a modest list of entrees that looked scrumptious and reasonably priced. Perfect.

It also had a fifteen foot wine rack built into the wall which explained why most patrons at the bar and at half dozen bistro style tables toward the back wall were drinking by the bottle. To show off the range of their wine collection, The Orleans Grapevine offers several selections of “Wine Flights,” in which the adventurous may taste and compare three wines from the same region or that share some of the same qualities…next time!

My bowl of gumbo with a small loaf of warm bread is as good as advertised. What got my attention was the player piano that was cranking out lovely selections from the great American Song book, show tunes, from ballads like “The Way You Look Tonight,” to upbeat tunes like “Anything Goes.”

I had to turn around several times to confirm that no one was tickling the ivories in person. That’s the great thing about New Orleans, which is such a sponge when it comes to music. Just about every kind of music you can imagine is in its musical gumbo – and somehow, it all fits.

Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.

The player piano adds a wonderful touch to the atmospherics. The huge selection of wine improves your inner atmospherics,too.The outside terrace is great for growning tomatoes but not for comfy dining in New Orleans in August.

The food and wine are chosen carefully.

The Orleans Grapevine has quite a provenance. When 720 Orleans Avenue was built in 1809 by Antoine August, he opened the first Creole Bistro in the French Quarter, called The Restaurant Orleans, and hired the finest Creole chefs in the city.

Two local business owners have carefully restored the building and its reputation for putting out fine food and a terrific wine list.

August 01, 2011

11th Annual Satchmo SummerfestThe premier American jazz festival dedicated to the life, music and legacy of New Orleans' native son, Louis 'Satchmo' ArmstrongAugust 4-7, 2011 at the old US Mint, now part of the Louisiana State Museum in the French Quarter

I’m heading for the 11th Annual Satchmo Summerfest in New Orleans. It was there last year that my self-image as a knowledgeable listener got banged on like a little drum, a tamburello, ironically enough, if you translate the words into Italian.

There was Clive Wilson, esteemed trumpeter and jazz historian, saying that when musicians like Buddy Bolden began changing the musical landscape in the 1920s, Louis Armstrong was paying attention. “The popular music at the time was in 2/4 time,” Wilson said, then played a song in which the beat was one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four. OK, I got that.

Next came my musical Waterloo. “Musicians like Bolden began to accent the melody in different places and converted it to 1 / 2 time,” Wilson said, and played “Hail To The King ” as an example.

Butch Thompson, piano, Herman Lebeaux on drums, as Clive Wilson plays into a coconut shell to demonstrate how trumpeters "talk." In the old days, they'd use a bucket that may have doubled as a spittoon.

“Clap on the downbeat, not the upbeat. Anyone clapping on the one will be shot!” he said with an impish grin.

I was cool with that. Until I nearly got shot. I’d always thought I was the hippest guy in the room when I clapped or snapped my fingers knowledgeably or nodded my head sagely when everyone else did the same on the next beat - the downbeat. To say that I was embarrassed would be an understatement.

The audience was full of the people I’d scoffed at for being so uncool as to not hear when to hit the correct beat. I sat on my hands. Left to my own devices, I’d have exposed myself as a fraud. To this day, I still catch myself doing what the trumpet playing HBO Treme character Delmonde Lambreaux says dismissively of audiences in Portland, Oregon. “I’ve been there. They clap on the ones!”

The rest of the afternoon's information about jazz in the Armstrong era was less deflating to my self-image.

Butch Thompson explains how musicians play ahead or behind the beat.

“Guys like Armstrong are historians who happen to be musicians. You’ll hear influences from gospel to opera to Buddy Bolden to King Oliver in Armstrong’s music. Some of the phrases that Satchmo invented survive to this day – the end of “Tin Roof Blues” and “Savoy Blues” are two examples.” Then the trio played the phrases.

King Oliver and Clark Terry could “talk” on their trumpets by playing into buckets. Wilson, with Butch Thompson at piano and Herman Lebeaux on drums, played into a coconut shell to demonstrate. I got completely lost when Wilson, who came to New Orleans in 1960, showed a video of “Careless Love” and talked about stuff like strings improvising with diminished tones. Improvising I get. Diminished tones? Maybe I’ll learn more this year.

“Some musicians play ahead of the beat and some play behind the beat,” he said, and the trio played “The King Porter Stomp” to show how it’s done. At least I could follow that.

And, Lord have mercy, I knew to clap on the downbeat.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"I used to come to New Orleans when I was in college in Minnesota. I could even afford it then," Butch Thompson said after the seminar. I must say, it's really cool to meet a musician I've admired for years, and told him so. These guys were so accessible and talked with everyone who wanted a minute after the seminar.

MORE SEMINARS ON SUNDAY

On Sunday, Village Voice writer Larry Blumenthal (far right) moderated a seminar talking about the music in HBO series Tremé, what a lineup (left to right)...writer Tom Piazza, musician Davis Rogan (after whom the Tremé character Davis Rogan is fashioned),Times-Picayune newspaper music reporter Alison Butterscotch, and Stafford Agee,New Orleans trombone player who is doing the real playing for Tremé actor Antoine Batiste.

Blumenthal says the Treme show is a fictional show that is intensely researched, a post Katrina story between fact and fiction, “NOLA lives in Tremé …” he says. "Writing about music is rare goal in TV and music is alive in the streets here."

The real Davis Rogan and the real pt at large.

Legendary Columbia records producer George Avakian discovered Louis Armstrong and produced some of his most important records. He produced the first LP record and the first live recording of jazz - Benny Goodman in 1938.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Avakian

Writer Tom Piazza (Why New Orleans Matters, City of Refuge, Understanding Jazz: How To Listen, and writer for the HBO series Tremé) with you know who.